updated 04:50 pm EDT, Mon March 19, 2012

iPad 2012 sales smash records

Apple quickly followed up on brief teases by confirming record-setting new iPad sales. The company has sold three million of the tablet since it launched over the weekend. While a record was expected, Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller characterized it as a breakthrough.

"The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold -- the strongest iPad launch yet," he said.

He reiterated that the new iPad's second wave of expansion was due on March 23, when 24 other countries would get the hardware with a similar 8AM launch day to the week before. The expansion focuses on Europe and includes Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.

Apple's sales were helped partly by online-preorders, which guaranteed a buildup of sales, as well as having its widest first-day release yet through 10 countries. Its performance significantly eclipses that of any Android maker to date. Amazon as the strongest competitor is unofficially thought to have taken a whole quarter to get four to six million Kindle Fires. Motorola sold one million tablets all of last year, which if averaged out would mean Apple had sold that amount in just one day.

Many retailers still have stock and suggest that Apple was better at meeting demand for the new iPad's launch than it has with previous iOS device releases.

Wait a minute

"Amazon.......have taken a whole quarter to get four to six million Kindle Fires"

That was a holiday quarter when cheapskates were looking for a cheap present and before all the negative reviews of the tablet. Remeber the 8Gb storage, no volume, orphaned OS, poor screen resolution, OS crashes.

"...pulling an Amazon."

Indeed. :

These numbers are "sold", not the fabulously uninformative "shipped" so many wannabes prefer to report.
Would they have provided actual sales numbers if their sales were disappointing? They have in the past (first gen. AppleTV) and I see no reason to believe the wouldn't. The speed at which they supply those numbers, well, might not be much incentive to hurry. ;)

Then again, there's new blood at the top, so anything is still on the table for the future.

Oh Chris, you poor misguided soul

According to your logic, it must have been 55 million "fanboys" who bought an iPad in 2011, without having any use for it. Meanwhile, I look around me and I see loads of people on the train, in offices, even in the park, having a great time getting no use out of their iPad.